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May 23, 2018

iPhone Quarter, ZTE Troubles, Facebook Troubles, Nokia Come-back

Sorry for the radio silence on the blog, but there hasn't been that much really 'news' in this space, compared to years past when we sometimes had to write several blog articles on the same day..

So the past month or two? The Quarterly results cycle came in. The item often of great interest is the Apple iPhone performance. 52.2 million iPhones shipped and that gives roughly a flat market share compared to the year before, so about 14%-15%. I'll come and do the full math later of the quarterly data. That race is no longer in any way interesting.

But two Top 10 smartphone brands ARE in the news. One who is facing imminent death and the other who is making a miraculous return-from-dead. So imminent death and current Top 10 brand first. ZTE. The Trump administration has put a massive squeeze on ZTE and the company is in serious trouble of imminent collapse. Then bizarrely, Trump reversed course and felt he needed to protect CHINESE employment (???) and after yet another typical Trump-mess, we now are at a Never-Neverland where Trump's own party Republicans are revolting against their President and well, ZTE may end up a casualty of this mess. We'll keep an eye on it.

In supremely delightful news, Nokia's come-back is well on schedule. The first major analyst house has now ranked Nokia smartphones back in the Top 10 (Strategy Analytics, for Q1 global numbers, see this article via Nokia Power User). They have given a count of 4.1 million Nokia smartphones sold in Q1 with 1.2% market share and a global ranking of 9th. Congrats HMD !!! Excellent work. Good luck further this year. This is the first analyst to give a Top 10 position for Nokia smartphones and that is only for the 'down' quarter that follows Christmas sales peak quarter, so lets not yet read too much into it. But I predicted Nokia will return to the Top 10 this year, and even if currently they are on the cusp, and other analyst houses don't see it quite that good yet for HMD, this is a great trend to be on, continuing growth in market share, and we should see plenty of major analyst houses report this data during the Summer and then Autumn periods.

Then onto more good news: Facebook is in serious trouble. Duh, they are the Evil Empire Mini-Me (with Microsoft being the true Evil Empire of all time, in tech). So just noted in passing, with the Cambridge Analytica mess, that Facebook is finally caught up in the disastrous business ethics their company was built upon. As I always preach in my lectures and seminars: "Don't spam, don't spy; ask permission and satisfy." Facebook is the very antithesis of good behavior and the sooner they die away, the better. I don't in any way suggest Facebook (or Microsoft) to die in the foreseeable future, but I do expect that the next US Congress (when Democrats take control again) will act decisively against Facebook's over-reach and probably split up the company similar to how AT&T the telecoms giant was broken up several decades ago.

Ok, that is my quick brief update. I'll do the math on the Top 10 smartphone market share data in the near future too, for the record. And of the comments? Somehow the comments have been misbehaving on the blog, I'll try to sort that out, but we should all have comments open, of course, as always.

Sammy is the #1 smartphone maker in the world and the most direct competitor to Apple. What other Android company sells in every market around the world, is on every carrier around the world? What other Android company successfully sells against the iPhone in the numbers Sammy does. And no, that does not include the competition in unit sales from phones far cheaper than iPhones.

If "Android" can't succeed in selling at the high end...innovation is going to be seriously hurt. It's not just about creating a boutique device like Andy Rubin's phone or even Google's phones. You need SCALE to stay in the race at competitive prices.

Consider Hauwei and their about to be released "better than the A12 Bionic" chip. Consider the massive investment it has taken for Hauwei to do that. Of course, not every competitor has the Chinese government funneling funding to them. Even so, how could they sustain that if sales, high end profitable sales, don't follow?

If Apple had kept Samsung as their manufacturer -- then Samsung would have 7mm chips of their own. Without Apple's volume, they don't have the scale to keep up.

Available for Consulting and Speakerships

Available for Consulting & Speaking

Tomi Ahonen is a bestselling author whose twelve books on mobile have already been referenced in over 100 books by his peers. Rated the most influential expert in mobile by Forbes in December 2011, Tomi speaks regularly at conferences doing about 20 public speakerships annually. With over 250 public speaking engagements, Tomi been seen by a cumulative audience of over 100,000 people on all six inhabited continents. The former Nokia executive has run a consulting practise on digital convergence, interactive media, engagement marketing, high tech and next generation mobile. Tomi is currently based out of Helsinki but supports Fortune 500 sized companies across the globe. His reference client list includes Axiata, Bank of America, BBC, BNP Paribas, China Mobile, Emap, Ericsson, Google, Hewlett-Packard, HSBC, IBM, Intel, LG, MTS, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Ogilvy, Orange, RIM, Sanomamedia, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Three, Tigo, Vodafone, etc. To see his full bio and his books, visit www.tomiahonen.com Tomi Ahonen lectures at Oxford University's short courses on next generation mobile and digital convergence. Follow him on Twitter as @tomiahonen. Tomi also has a Facebook and Linked In page under his own name. He is available for consulting, speaking engagements and as expert witness, please write to tomi (at) tomiahonen (dot) com

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Pearls Vol 1: Mobile AdvertisingTomi's first eBook is 171 pages with 50 case studies of real cases of mobile advertising and marketing in 19 countries on four continents. See this link for the only place where you can order the eBook for download

Tomi Ahonen Almanac 2009

Tomi Ahonen Almanac 2009A comprehensive statistical review of the total mobile industry, in 171 pages, has 70 tables and charts, and fits on your smartphone to carry in your pocket every day.